Grief
by Dizzy Rockerson
Summary: Takes place sometime fairly shortly after Mulder's funeral, but before the major "back to life" events of "Deadalive". Basically just 3rd person, character study of Scully's grief. A bit of MSR, and a LOT of angst. R&R, por favor. :   '


GRIEF

She lies on his bed in a fetal position, clutching one of his shirts to her chest. It's been in his laundry basket for months, but he hasn't been there to clean it, and she couldn't bring herself to wash away his scent. It was a scent she would always be able to recognize, but her pregnancy makes every smell that much more poignant, so that the odor from the shirt hits her with a fierceness that was never there before.

She doesn't want it to go away.

She wants to immerse herself in it fully, and never let it leave her senses. She never wants to forget. She brings the shirt closer to her, and she shuts her eyes. A tear escapes one of them, and it slides down her cheek into his comforter.

She can never forget what he smells like, because she'll never have a reminder. He's gone now. She put dirt in his grave. Finality.

She rests a tentative hand on her hardened, but not yet enlarged, belly, and the tears come harder now. He'll never see the end result of what's growing inside of her. He'll never hold the baby in his arms and know the truth. He'll never know his own child.

What will she tell her son or daughter of him? Of the father they never knew? Would she tell them that their father spent his lifetime chasing aliens and government officials with a gun in one hand and a badge in the other? Would she explain that he sacrificed everything for what he believed in? Would she justify to them that all he had wanted was the truth? Would her child follow in the footsteps of their father, inheriting his never-faltering passion for what he believed was right?

She would never be able to express to her child how much he would have loved them. How could she explain something so intangible to someone who could never experience it first hand?

She wants nothing more than for him to come through that door right now. To walk into this bedroom and lie down beside her, spooning her with his muscular arms and tell her that she's not alone in this; that he'll always be there for her and their baby. Against his chest was the only place she ever really felt safe. Would she ever feel that secure again?

She struggles to pull her cell phone out of her pocket now. She flips it open and dials the number she knows better than her own and places it to her ear. It rings. And rings. And rings. She knows there isn't going to be an answer, but isn't it just human instinct to hope that there will be?

"_Hi, this is Mulder. Leave a message after the-" _

A toxic beep sounds off against her ear drum.

She closes the phone, flips it open again, and dials once more.

It rings.

Still, illogically, she hopes.

"_Hi, this is Mulder. Leave a message after the-" _

She does it again.

She can hear the phone ringing in the room over. She knows where it is. Sitting in its place on the table near the fish tank. Its position is a constant, and with no one left to answer it, it will remain that way.

"_Hi, this is Mulder. Leave a message after the-"_

She won't let them change anything about this apartment. Even with the expense of a new baby on the way, she pays both her rent and his. Before it was in case he came back. Now it's because without it there's nothing left. As long as the paycheck still shows up in the landlord's mailbox, no one complains. She keeps the checks coming like a heartbeat; each month like a rhythm.

"_Hi, this is Mulder. Leave a message after the-" _

She doesn't really think he'll answer, but she needs to hear his voice. The hopeless dialing becomes tedious, however, and she knows she can't keep it up much longer. She's only deepening the wounds in her heart with every bottomless ring in her ear, its echo teasing her from the living room. She does it one more time.

"_Hi, this is Mulder. Leave a message after the-"_

She closes her phone gently, and sits it beside her. She buries her face in his shirt again, inhales deeply, and relaxes. She'll be okay for now, because right now she can pretend. Lying here in his bed, she can pretend that she's just keeping it warm for him; that soon he'll be in to join her.

Right now, she's in a fantasy world, and in fantasy worlds, death is not a permanent condition.

She allows herself to cease reality for a while. Her face is still against the fabric of his clothing, one hand clutching it with more force than necessary, the other rubbing her belly up and down absent-mindedly. Eventually exhaustion washes over her, and she drifts off into sleep, into a place where she needn't cease reality, because her fantasy worlds are real.

Here she'll stay tonight, and tomorrow she'll do it again.


End file.
